MKGBass

Greg, traditionally guitars usually leave about 1/4" thickness of the top after the carve, but because your top is only 5/8" your carve will not likely look like anything. Since you're doing a binding (i'm assuming you didnt mean Natural binding), I think it would be best for you to carve the top all 5/8" of the way. and the binding can be in the limba. This way, you still see the whole top, and your carve is still pronounced and purdy. Also, route the binding channel before you carve the top, you'll find yourself not a happy man if you do otherwise.

ps. i'd still like to see a pic of the whole thing cut to size, it looks pretty cool so far.

4. As soon as wood is exposed you expose the potential for oil, moisture, dirt, whatever to get into the wood again, your guitar body is the most vulnerable before you get finish on it.

He couldn't be more right. I sanded a guitar to the wood for refinishing once, sprayed it, and hung it up (a mere 8" from the workbench). When I came out, to my horror, the guitar had fallen, and an entire chunk of the body had chipped off. I partially attribute this to cheap wood, but on the other hand, i should have stopped at the base coat.

looks good, i've never seen a PRS with a TOM, but it should work , and there could be a whole line of PRSes out there i dont even know about.

Having built both, I actually find building a bass a bit harder. The necks are much wider, so the radius on the back of the neck is not necessarily a perfect circle, it is more oval shaped, which is more difficult to get precise than a circle. Also larger proportions so more room for errors, thats just me.

You can cut your slot just as well with a 1/4" bit .  The only areas that count are where the truss rod blocks sit.  Its easy enough to shim them in, once the freboard is glued on, it will not move.

Amen, thats what I do and I havent had a problem with it yet. A little silicon helps to keep the brass ends in place, but even that is not necessary. I haven't had any truss rattle or truss movement with rods that weren't shimmed. My router bit cost $7 double flute, carbide tipped, works great. And I only spent 20 minutes getting it.

I believe the idea of using a 1/4" bit has come up before on the forum, and has been generally accepted. If you really wanna be a penny pincher, go buy yourselfs a length of steel rod, a tap and die set, and a chisel.

pic doesnt work. See if you can get it fixed and I'll take a look. I'm also building a PRS and about 3 of them have passed through my hands in the last month, with lots of meticulous scanning and observing, so I might be able to give you a hand.

Mitch

I haven't worked with any Ibanez's but the white dust is probably the lacquer coating. This would also account for the ineffectiveness of the paint remover, as the lacquer would prevent it from actually getting to the paint. Don't quote me on that, as I do not know how Ibanez finishes their instruments.

A CNC machine can be used to make just about anything, depending on what bits and how nice of a machine you have. The machine might have to make little 1/1000" movements around the curvature of the neck so that little sanding is required, or, if you go to www.wayneguitars.com and look in the videos, you can see that he has had a custom router bit made to match the curvature of his necks. I like this method, hook up and slice, and you've got a neck

how much too low is it? Too low that you couldnt easily shim it up to height?

If you need a good half an inch, maybe it would be cool if you planed a little bit off the heel, then added a whole chunk that matched the skunk stripe or fingerboard. You could glue it up and shape it to match the existing heel.

Guitarfrenzy (2.0): I just realized your concern regarding the truss rod. The picture is VERY misleading, I must have taken it at just the right angle to omit any shadows. The dark portion you see is actually the ajusting nut of the truss rod sticking out just a little. The actual route extends about another inch or more after that.

double post? odd

what in the world would embarrass you about this?

Great job!

Greg: The tung oil on there now is just a base coat really. I usually throw a finish on (i sanded to 400 grit), then I start back again with 60 and do the whole process over again, until i build several layers of the oil finish.

Guitarfrenzy: The truss access is ok, it seems small, but it is the same size and depth as the one on the PRS I copied it from. You just have to use the short end of the wrench. Its going to be a set neck. I was very worried about finding and testing the correct neck angle. In Bob Benedetto's archtop book he shows a jig he made to measure the neck angle so that it was 1" off the surface at the bridge. I've modified this so that I can measure the neck angle off the real PRS between the pickups, then copy it onto mine. It's hard to explain, I'll see if I can make a diagram. I also may be able to lighty fit strings on it before I glue to make sure the angle is OK. The neck joint is extremely tight right now (I'll probably sand a little off, I have to lightly tap the neck in with a rubber hammer), and I might be able to fit the strings on and add a slight amount of tension so that i can check the angle.

Dave: If you look at the first pics you can see that the neck pocket stops at the pickup cavity. I had originally thought that I was going to have to work with the 1" of space there was. I then realized that it would be smart to create a little "tongue" (you can see it in one of the clamped pictures) that extends into the pickup cavity, but remains underneath. This way I have more gluing space, and I can more easily adjust the neck angle. At first I was wary of this, but after doing some looking, I've seen that other people have done it as well.

Tonight I got a lot accomplished, and it made me happy

First, I unclamped all my clamps to reveal the nice fingerboard.

Next I glued in the fret markers (this was my first time, sadly there were mistakes! )

Then I profiled and shaped the neck (shown here in one huge step!)

FINALLY, I size the neck joint and did a test fit! Looks satisfactory thus far...

The nasty discoloration is a thin stain that I put on to help me see any imperfections in the shaping of the top.

Oops, forgot this...base coat layer of tung oil (will probably sand all of it off)

Goodnight!

Mitch

GregP...it took me awhile to post:

The body on a real PRS is about 1 5/8 - 1 7/8" overall. The body on mine is just below that as I was not able to cut from full sized wood.

Looks the same either way...

New Update!

Finally got the fingerboard here and gluing! It's from StewMac and it is impeccable.

Here's the neck rough cut and gluing. (notice the blaze orange paduak on the bench...pics of that neck next week.)

In this second shot you can see the 'tongue' on the end of the neck after the heel. This is to expand the gluing portion of the neck and allow me to better adjust the neck angle. Everything is rough cut, tomorrow night i will size it up and shape it!

gorgeous, thanks!

Found nothing in the tutorials about gluing.

Glue before or after setting frets?

If after...how?

Here are my entries.

$14 Flames

$20 Quilt

I'm in need of a new spray gun, I'll probably get something cheap ($100) because I need to get one in the next few days for a job and ordering isn't an option. I'll probably go to Sears. I'm just wondering whether I should get an HVLP gun or not.

Thanks,

Kirk

What's the best to use to glue frets in?

No glue at all?

Anyone?

What do all you people use to glue in your inlays? CA? Or is there something supreme...

haha this bass has been in progress long before you joined this forum. Look at the date on the first post.

But yes. Basey, any more? It's been a week or so...

Also I noticed that the tuners were angled up. Is there any particular reason for this. I know that angling them back makes tuning easier, so would angling them up reverse this effect? Clue me in bro.

good

Litch, how much did you pay for that one?